Tag: vfxblog

  • ‘Thor: Ragnarok’s’ Sakaar chase scene was also a courtship dance

    Stuck on Sakaar but looking to get back to Asgard, Thor, Valkeryie and Banner steal one of the Grandmaster’s ships, the Commodore. In a high octane chase scene through the city, they escape Sakaar fighters and exit through a wormhole. Digital Domain crafted visual effects for the Thor: Ragnarok sequence, overseen by overall visual effects…

  • What went into those cool title and UI designs in ‘Thor: Ragnarok’?

    The explosion in visual effects work in comic book films is perhaps only matched by the explosion in design work also seen in those movies – everything from logo reveals, to main-on-end titles, screen UIs and other designs. One of the studios behind much of this work is Perception, based in New York. It recently…

  • Behind the scenes of that super-cool Bifrost scene in ‘Thor: Ragnarok’

    One of the scenes, as brief as it is, that really caught my eye in Thor: Ragnarok, was the Bifrost journey taken by Thor, Loki and an uninvited Hela. A mid-journey fight ensues, which ultimately sends Thor and Loki to the planet Sakaar. We’ve seen the Bifrost before, but this time visual effects supervisor Jake…

  • Pixar previews their real-time graphics talk at SIGGRAPH Asia

    One of the featured sessions at SIGGRAPH Asia in Bangkok (27-30 November) is How Real-Time Graphics Helps Pixar Make Feature Films, being presented by senior graphics software engineers David Yu and Pol Jeremias-Vila. I got the chance to ask them a few quick questions about what real-time graphics and effects initiatives are in use at…

  • A visual journey through the screen graphics of ‘Blade Runner 2049’

    Territory Studio is behind some of the coolest UI and screen graphics you’ve seen in recent films, from Prometheus to Ghost in the Shell and now Blade Runner 2049. What better way to see what they did for the Denis Villeneuve film than just let them show off their visuals. Here’s a look at designs…

  • Crafting the insane action behind ‘Thor: Ragnorak’s’ end battle

    WARNING: Contains some plot spoilers. Amongst the many and complex visual effects sequences in Taika Waititi’s Thor: Ragnarok, the final battle on Asgard is perhaps the most epic. Here, the evil Hela (Cate Blanchett), her d-guards and massive dog Fenris take on Thor (Chris Hemsworth), Hulk (Mark Ruffalo), Valkyrie (Tessa Thompson), Loki (Tom Hiddleston) and…

  • Ian Spriggs on CG portraits and designing characters for Neill Blomkamp

    Ian Spriggs is a character artist with experience at several visual effects studios and most recently at Neill Blomkamp’s Oats Studios. Here, he has taken on some of the most elaborate modelling and texturing tasks of his career. Spriggs is also well-known for his CG portraits and self-portraits, including one of Blomkamp himself. I sat…

  • Reflecting on ‘Valerian’: concept artist Ben Mauro

    At Trojan Horse was a Unicorn in Portugal recently, I got to sit down with Ben Mauro, an art director, concept artist, creature designer and illustrator whose work has appeared in such films as Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets, Lucy, Elysium, Chappie and the Hobbit films, plus several games and other places.…

  • vfxblog readers get a discount to SIGGRAPH Asia

    One of the reasons I try and get to different conferences is that there often ends up being presentations on VFX and animation that you get early access to or don’t get shown anywhere else. That’s exactly what looks set to be shown soon at SIGGRAPH Asia in Bangkok, taken place between 27 and 30…

  • Let’s all move to LA, in 2049

    Los Angeles in 2049 is an over-populated metropolis, threatened by rising sea levels, and featuring vastly different scale buildings, from sprawling favelas to mile high pyramids. That’s how the city is presented in Blade Runner 2049, which had to show a location 30 years into the future from the original Blade Runner and had the benefit…